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The Washington Post Fact Checker Michael Dobbs has awarded Sarah Palin four Pinocchios (the worst lie possible) for continuing to claim that she oversees "nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas" as Governor of Alaska. Fact-checker Post on Palin The real figure is 7.4%. Besides which, the whole claim is complete campaign hyperbole because no Governor has substantial responsibility for managing production of oil and gas on federal, tribal, and private lands. The scary thing is that Palin has been touted by John McCain as the most knowledgable person in America on energy issues. That's a good measure of McCain's ability to assess and recruit 1st class talent if he became president.

As Dobbs observed Palin has been having trouble getting her
basic energy statistics straight.

Last week, Sarah Palin told Charlie
Gibson of ABC News that her state, Alaska, produced "nearly 20 percent
of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." Yesterday, she told a campaign
rally in Golden, Colorado, that she had been responsible for overseeing
"nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas." Both
claims are way off.

The Facts

While Alaska is a leading producer of crude oil, it produces
relatively little natural gas, hardly any coal, and no nuclear power.
Its share of oil production has been declining sharply, and now ranks
lower than Texas and Louisiana. As the following table shows, Alaska is
the ninth largest energy supplier in the United States, accounting for
a modest 3.5 percent share of the nation's total energy production.

State

Total production

Percent of U.S. Total

Texas

10,829 Trillion Btu

15.6

Wyoming

9,154

13.1

Louisiana

6,760

9.7

West Virginia

4,061

5.8

California

3,198

4.6

Kentucky

3,097

4.5

New Mexico

2,752

3.9

Pennsylvania

2,694

3.8

Alaska

2,417

3.5

SOURCE: Energy Information Administration

After the non-partisan Factcheck.org pointed out Palin's error
in her interview with Gibson, the Alaska governor revised her claim
somewhat, limiting it to oil and gas. But data compiled by the Energy
Information Administration contradict her claim that she oversees
"nearly 20 percent" of oil and gas production in the country. According to authoritative EIA data, Alaska accounted for just 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005.

It is not even correct for Palin to claim that her state is
responsible for "nearly 20 percent" of U.S. oil production. Oil
production has fallen sharply in Alaska during her governorship. The
state's share of total U.S. oil production fell from 18 percent in 2005
to 13 percent this year, according to the EIA.